The present invention is directed to a soft mechanical restraint system that may be easily and quickly deployed by a first person on a subject being held in a restrained position by a second person.
There are many thousands of human service and law enforcement agencies and facilities that provide care and supervision to aggressive, suicidal, and emotionally disturbed persons (hereinafter commonly referred to as “EDPs”). The staff and officers working in these agencies regularly come into physical contact with the EDPs through the use of physical subduing or restraint holds when the EDP becomes aggressive. Although there are many types of well-known physical subduing holds, the safest and most advantageous physical subduing hold is a Primary Restraint Technique (PRT) described in greater detail in a commonly assigned U.S. Pat. No. 6,273,091 entitled “APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR SAFELY MAINTAINING A RESTRAINING HOLD ON A PERSON”.
While restraint holds are useful for relatively short periods of time, often restraint of the EDP is necessary for an extended period. In such cases, the EDP must be restrained using some sort of a mechanical restraint system. Typically this involves placing wrist and ankle mechanical restraints on the EDP so that the EDP may be restrained for an extended period of time at the place of the restraint hold, or transported to another location while wearing the restraints. Most previously known restraint systems involve mechanical locks—for example, one popular restraint utilizes a mechanical spring-loaded lock that requires a special key to open. It takes at least 4-5 staff members to successfully apply such restraints at a speed of no lower than 2-3 minutes per restraint. During the application of these restraints, the EDP must be held down and poses a constant threat to the staff members until the restraining process is complete. Furthermore, removal of such restraints in emergency situations (i.e. in a medical emergency) takes a significant amount of time since a key must be located and used to open each restraint on each limb—this is especially problematic because without the key, which may not be immediately available in case of an emergency, the restraints cannot be removed at all. Finally, such complex restraint systems are expensive, heavy, and require extensive training to use properly.
Certain more recently developed restraints include mechanical locks based on a belt-like mechanism similar to a clothing belt with a buckle and a portion of the restraint having holes therein. Other similar restraints include a protruding metal member on one portion of the restraint and slots cut into the body of the restraint such that when the restraint is applied to the EDP, the portion with slots is pulled over the portion with the metal member until the restraint is tightened and the metal member is pushed through one of the slots. The end section of the slot portion may be further secured to the restraint. One of the main drawbacks with this arrangement is the fact that it is impossible to fit the restraint exactly to the hand or foot of the EDP since the restraint can only be tightened in increments equal to distance between the slots. As a result, it is possible that the restraint will be too loose (making it easier for the EDP to remove their limb from the restraint), or too tight (posing a danger of cutting off blood flow to the limb). Furthermore, a struggling unsupervised EDP may be able to loosen the restraint by pushing the slot portion of the restraint away from the metal member. Finally, all types of above restraints require special custom-made connectors to connect to one another or to stationary positions (i.e. a bed, etc.).
Manipulation of the previously known restraints once attached is difficult as well, requiring several people to pull webbing through complex system of buckles and connectors to connect cuff restraints to one another. And often, once an EDP is moved to a stationary restraint area, the restraints used during EDP transport must be removed and replaced with stationary restraints.
The above problems and challenges are at least partially advantageously solved by a novel circular cuff module that may be applied to each of an EDP's limbs quickly (and removed therefrom) by staff members without use of complex locking mechanisms as disclosed in a commonly assigned co-pending U.S. patent application entitled “Soft Circular Restraint Apparatus and Method” incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Several advantageous approaches to interconnecting the novel cuff modules are disclosed as well.
However, one of the main challenges of previously known restraint systems, including the one disclosed in the above-incorporated “Soft Circular Restraint Apparatus and Method” patent application, is in how the cuff restraints are connected to one another. While connecting ankle cuff modules to one another by a simple interconnect may serve to prevent the EDP from kicking and to limit the EDP's walking speed, application of a simple wrist interconnect may pose a problem with particularly violent and/or aggressive EDPs. Similarly, while a simple wrist interconnect may prevent the EDP from using their hands independently from one another, the EDP is not prevented from flailing their arms at elbows and shoulders if the restrained wrists are at the EDP's front, and thus the EDP may still attack staff members even if the wrists are pulled together. Securing the EDP's wrists behind their back is a partial solution, but a nimble EDP can contort themselves to move their wrists to the front of their body. While some attempts have been made to develop more secure wrist interconnects, invariably these devices are cumbersome, heavy, and expensive to manufacture. Most importantly, the complexity of such devices require several staff members to apply them to EDPs. Unfortunately, this also means that such restraints are very difficult and time consuming to remove from the EDP in case of an emergency.
With respect to ankle restraints, while the novel circular cuff modules, disclosed in the above-incorporated patent application, include connectors to releasably connect to stationary connectors (such as may be disposed on a bed), other types of ankle modules and respective interconnects do not possess any mechanism to connect to stationary connectors.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide an apparatus and method for quickly and easily applying mechanical restraints to a person being controlled through a restraining hold or who is otherwise immobile. It would furthermore be desirable to provide a mechanical restraint apparatus that is comfortable to the subject and that may be quickly and easily removed in case of an emergency. It would additionally be desirable to provide a mechanical restraint system that severely restricts the range of motion of the person's arms. It would further be desirable to provide a mechanical restraint system that can be attached to commonly available stationary connectors. It would also be desirable to provide a lightweight mechanical restraint system that is easy to transport and use and that is inexpensive to manufacture. Moreover, it would be desirable to provide a mechanical restraint system that may be easily controlled by a single person during and after its application.